#SocialSkim: One Social App to Replace the Rest; Snapchat Allows Sharing: 10 Stories This Week

This week's 'Skim: all about miniprograms... how they'll replace apps and why they'll probably change the course of social media; Snapchat aims for more visibility by making content shareable outside its app; what we know of new app v2 from Vine's founders; Yahoo Finance launches a social media app for saving money; Snapchat ups its analytics game with app-install ad capabilities; how Foursquare took an enormous risk, and how it's started to pay off; why Rupert Murdoch thinks social networks should pay news publishers for content, and why that might not be a bad idea; and much more...

Skim for the big social media subjects!

1. Will miniprograms replace apps? Yes, if WeChat has its way.

WeChat is touting the success of miniprograms—stripped down versions of apps that live within the WeChat messaging platform so users don't have to download them separately—by marking the fact that it now offers 580,000 of them. That's a big deal in more ways than one, particularly when you consider that the App Store offered only 500,000 iOS apps from 2008 until 2012.

Developers and consumers alike are warming up to the idea of an app-free world, with one million developers now looking to fulfill the needs of users who'd like one tool to access everything. WeChat users already use the app as a central hub, doing everything from texting friends and ordering groceries to booking doctor appointments and hailing cabs.

Miniprograms are likely indicative of where social will move in the future, and if we had any money to bet we'd bet big that Facebook's already knee deep in developing similar, one-app-fits-all capabilities on WhatsApp before WeChat can fill the void in Western markets, particularly the US.

2. Snapchat opens up its walled garden, shares stories with the masses

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Christian Neri is a digital marketing professional in the film & television industry, and a contributor to MarketingProfs. An American expat in Paris, he recently completed his MS in digital marketing at IÉSEG School of Management.